


Precious, Darling, Dear

by catty_the_spy



Category: Hunger Games Series - All Media Types
Genre: Capitol people and their skewed perspectives, F/M, Gen, Infertility, The Capitol, cloning
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2015-06-21
Updated: 2015-06-21
Packaged: 2018-04-05 10:25:24
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,592
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/4176336
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/catty_the_spy/pseuds/catty_the_spy
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Asteria can’t give birth or use a surrogate, so her husband gives her the next best thing: Peeta Mellark.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Precious, Darling, Dear

**Author's Note:**

> For the trope bingo prompt “celebratory kiss”. This was originally going to end with Cephus getting shot for refusing to hand over “any and all ill gotten gifts from President Snow”, but I decided to end on a lighter note.

Asteria wasn’t the old fashioned sort – she rather preferred to be _in_ fashion, as her fantastical ear shape could attest. Still, it was a disappointment when she and Cephus discovered she couldn’t have babies the old fashioned way, or any way at all.

It would have been awful for her figure and made her a bore at parties, but some things were just timeless.

She had a good cry about it, which ruined her pink glow-in-the-dark eyelashes, but her darling Cephus found a way to make it better. Cephus did refreshments at the Nike, which got him close to Cletus who ran messages at the news center, which was how he found out about the next best thing.

Asteria couldn’t have a child of her own, a little blend of her and her darling’s best features, but what she could have was a victor of her very own. A copy.

“And the best, dear, is that we’re jumping to the top of the line!” Cephus said, and gave her a small computer with all the information on it. “We can have a Finnick or a Cashmere or a Brutus of our very own.”

It was wonderful. Of course she had to kiss him. A lot of smeared make up for the both of them, but it was worth it.

They could choose from sixty-five victors, all but the very oldest, with the promise of more options to come.

“In a few years you could choose from some of your favorite tributes,” said the catalogue.

Asteria liked the sound of that. It would be nice to have a Rue of her very own. She wouldn’t look very much like either of them, but she was very pretty, and so sweet in the interviews and in the games.

In the end she chose Peeta. Not because he was _in_ , though it was nice to be a trend setter rather than a trend follower for once, but because in many ways he reminded her of her darling Cephus.

Love matches weren’t in when she was coming up. Sure, Peeta and Katniss had made it fashionable again, but when Asteria was younger she’d received a very negative reaction when she chose Cephus over the aging politician her parents picked. Marriage was meant to be an alliance, like the ones in the games. Emotions were for affairs.

So Asteria had a fondness for Peeta’s hopeless rule bending love, and for his family’s bakery – Cephus’s family were artisan pastry chefs – and for his love of color. And Cephus had been born blond.

It took six weeks for the baby to arrive.

They emptied their spare room into a nursery and decorated it with yellow and green. The crib was a bright gold toned wood, and the window was blended into a tv wall that showed a quiet forest scene.

And she couldn’t resist a bit of orange, so she added mechanical monarch butterflies to glide around the room.

They went over budget buying soft pretty clothes and toys and blankets, and of course only the best food would do. It was mild debt, nothing like the black hole from their wedding, and…well. Asteria couldn’t let her precious baby be out of fashion.

Waiting was awful. They could tell no one, not until the wide release. It was their own wonderful unbearable secret.

When the day came, all the stress of waiting and secrecy fell away. Their little Peeta was perfect. Approximately six weeks old as part of the finishing process, and in all respects a normal human baby.

“No refunds,” the technician said, “but we provide complimentary maintenance services as part of your membership package.”

“I can’t see us ever wanting to give him up,” Cephus said, just as awestruck as his wife.

Asteria kissed him, which smeared both their lipsticks and threw off their whole aesthetic, but the technician was polite enough not to comment on it.

 

Less than a year later all the troubles began.

“Politics,” Cephus said, grim after a bad day at work. “Best we stay out of it, dear.”

“I’m sure it will blow over,” Asteria said. She handed him the baby to cheer him up.

Precious Peeta was both exactly and not at all like Peeta Mellark, though admittedly at this age it was hard to tell. Moody and sickly at times, but for the most part cheerful and affectionate.

Most days, Asteria looked at him and saw a miniature Cephus, complete with her orange lip print all over his cheeks. It warmed her head to toe.

Cephus smiled at the baby and put his blue lipstick all over the orange, but something still worried him.

“Don’t mind me. Let’s go to your little meeting.”

 

Asteria had set up a little club between the patrons of the copy service. Because she’d been the first, the others found it fashionable to join her, and she was able to set the standard.

The Hupclears had a little Seeder they’d named Celeste. The Moorewells and the Hides had a Finnick apiece. Mr. and Mrs. Eyedlevale had a small Katniss, and Mrs. Deeds, who was getting on in years, had a Mags she’d named Martha.

“Let’s go around the room and share how our children are doing,” Asteria said once everyone had a snack. She’d rented an Avox to babysit for the hour. It was good for the young ones to socialize, and for the parents to have adult company.

Everyone was doing well, except for Katniss Eyedlevale, who was apparently bite-y and ill-tempered. They worked as a group to come up with possible solutions.

“Though I must say,” said Mrs. Deeds, “that it might be something you’ll have to wait out.”

Mrs. Deeds was a widow with a bit of parenting experience, so Asteria paid a lot of attention to what she had to say. Mrs. Deeds was not a font of fashionable parenting advice – her views, like much of her wardrobe, were a bit out of date. She did have a dead son she’d raised to nineteen, which was more than anyone else. Experience was sometimes more important than fashion.

 

Their second post-Quell meeting found them all in a bit of a pickle.

“We need to move very carefully,” Asteria said. “And we must think of what’s best for the children.”

She was trying to start a trend of recycling, so she wore a dress from last season, and all signs pointed to the next trend being ‘war rationing’, so she was ahead of the curve.

“I know what I’m doing,” said Mrs. Eyedlevale. “I’m getting rid of it.”

Asteria gasped. “How tacky!”

Mrs. Eyedlevale turned red at the insult.

Being head of the meeting made Asteria the arbiter of what behavior was in style, and she was very careful with her use of ‘tacky’ for the sake of group morale; but this had certainly overshot the mark.

“These are children, Mrs. Eyedlevale. There are _no refunds_ , Mrs. Eyedlevale. Let’s be calm and find a better solution.”

“Screw your better solution! President Snow won’t have a better solution when he comes for my neck.”

“Give her to me if you’re such a coward,” said Mrs. Deeds. “She’s not a toy; she’s a Permanent Modification, like a bone restructure. If you can’t manage your resources to account for unexpected hardships, then you belong in the Districts.”

Asteria applauded. “Thank you for being a model of pretty, appropriate behavior. Is there anyone else who feels they can no longer handle the responsibility of their purchase?”

Shamefaced, the Hides raised their hands.

Mr. Moorewell volunteered to take their Finnick. “We can raise them as twins.”

“Wonderful!” Asteria clapped her hands, and the others half-heartedly followed suit.

“Now, let’ come up with some sort of plan. We’ll have to transfer ownership of the children, and change their names to something less…problematic.”

“That shouldn’t be too hard,” said Cephus. “Loads of parents are taking their baby Katnisses to the registrar.”

 

Cephus lost his job quite literally overnight. The power flickered and eventually died. They began to hoard food as shortages became frequent. Asteria and Cephus went through their clothes and wigs for things they didn’t like, and sold those things to cover living arrangements and food and bribes. They would be even deeper in debt, but that was just a fact of life in the Capitol. It hardly mattered. Through it all they remained a happy little family. Precious Peeta – precious Petra was a joy, and seemed more like Cephus every day.

Mrs. Deeds renamed Katniss “Katsa”, and then “Calliope”. Phineas and Darius Moorewell made a charming pair of identical twins, and no one had to know that Darius was a few weeks older. The copy service reduced their options to Districts One and Two, and then shut down altogether. There would be no more free maintenance for their baby. His medical care would add to their debt like everything else. They had to create new records for him, and bribe the doctor to ignore two years worth of missing information.

All their carefully placed connections – the ones that got them this corner apartment, the ones that got Cephus his job and forgave their debts and helped them get their baby – dried up and disappeared, until their only friends were from the copy service.

By the time they got the evacuation notice, their only option was to barricade the door.

“We’ll be fine,” Asteria said, and Cephus said, back and forth to each other and to precious Peeta. So long as they stayed together they’d be fine.


End file.
